A blog with stories that tell of the life in the big city, multicultural encounters, languages and personal thoughts on political and social issues, particularly gay rights and religion. By Ahuv 柯俊杰

13 Jan 2010

Marriage Equality for the UK

Currently, eight countries and several jurisdictions in the world allow same-sex marriage. These are Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, a handful of US States and Mexico City.

As I wrote earlier, there is also a campaign to bring gay marriage finally to the UK, but mostly it’s focused in Scotland. www.equalmarriage.org.uk started a campaign in Scotland March 2009.

Secondly, it is the concept of a separate but (yet actually not fully) equal law. One set of laws for straight couples, one for gays & lesbians. Just like there used to be different set of laws for blacks and whites in South Africa or the US. Separate but equal is not equal and this is why we have to stand up for equal treatment now more than ever as the parliament discusses the Equality Bill.

For all UK residents, please write to your local MP about this injustice or copy & paste the following into an email from on findyourmp.parliament.uk :

Dear MP,

I note that Lord Alli has tabled an amendment to the Equality Bill on allowing religious civil partnerships, and I write on this matter.

Although this would correct a major problem in the Civil Partnership act, that it ignored religious same-sex couples, if this were to go through, it still leaves a major problem with the system of relationship registration in Britain.

There exists one relationship registration system for same-sex couples, and another for opposite sex couples. These systems, though designed to look alike, are different, and therefore I believe they are unequal and discriminatory.

Using another word may seem like an easy answer to equality, but it deprives same-sex couples of the terminology of love, refuses them the fullest blessing from the state of their relationship and denies them the respect from society and the community that marriage automatically confers.

Even if my partner and I were to go abroad to a nation that did recognise same-sex marriages and marry there, as soon as we got back to Britain it is relegated to a civil partnership.

I would like to see an amendment tabled that allowed same-sex couples to have a civil marriage, or a religious marriage if that particular religion allowed it (such as Quakers, Liberal Jews, or the Metropolitan Community Church). Equal rights, I believe, must mean that straight and gay are treated the same, ruled over the same laws, and judged by the same standard.

Civil Partnerships were of course a significant step forward, but rather than making a separate system more like the thing it is trying to emulate through this amendment, same-sex couples in Britain should simply be allowed the same marriage rights as all other couples in Britain.